Category Archives: Music

How the Brain Tunes in to the Music of Speech

Ken Probst/UCSF

Human voices convey meaning and emphasis by changing pitch. Now, scientists at University of California, San Francisco believe they have found the brain area that makes this possible.

Scientists increasingly believe home sapiens achieved language not only by evolving a sophisticated larynx, or voice box, but also by developing the neurological capacity to use it in a variety of ways.

Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
Scientists Identify The Brain’s Pitch Area, Essential For Language

We’re Not in Phoenix Anymore: How Radio Signals “Skipped” All the Way to Kansas

Yes, it’s that exciting.

Unlike AM signals, FM is confined to line-of-sight, so Phoenix’s KBAQ radio station doesn’t typically reach much beyond the Valley of the Sun, let alone to a Volkswagen Beetle 875 miles away. So it’s no wonder that Ken Baker of the Radio Kansas Network was surprised to see what resolved on his HD tuner that day.

Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
How Phoenix-Area Radio Signals Can Bounce All The Way To Kansas

Eureka! I Have Lost It!

The original keyboard cats.

Left to our own devices and allowed to live without constant fear of death by hunger or violence, we devise some pretty startling stuff.

Sure, some of our better efforts don’t outlast our calamities, or go obsolete before their time or simply never get their chance to shine because no one yet recognizes the need for them. But you can’t keep a good idea down forever, as I explore in this list of …

10 Times Humanity Found the Answer (and Then Forgot)

The Topsy-Turvy World of Trendspotting

Poster of Alexander Trend forecasters project everything from staffing and hiring needs to next year’s “it” color. Through a combination of instinct, experience, statistical modeling and not a little bit of finger-crossing, they tell clients where best to place their billion-dollar bets. Even granting the occasional self-fulfilling prophecy, it’s never been an easy gig, and the consequences of failure can be ruinous.

Today, big data is changing the field, providing unprecedented amounts of information even as it churns out predictive algorithms no one quite understands. In this article, I take a look at the past and future of this prognosticative trade and examine …

How Trend Forecasters Work

Funk with me if you want to live

Is the world clamoring for a dancing robot-speaker? Perhaps not. Then again, I probably said the same thing about Big Mouth Billy Bass, Let’s Rock Elmo or Furby. Heck, something has to be the toy that dominates Christmas.

So, read on. After all, it’s Bieber-certified.

How the mRobo Ultra Bass Works